The concept of four candles originated from the "Grandparents
Holiday Wreath of Love" used by Josephine D'Antonio, a grandparent who worked to pass federal legislation to enforce out-of-state custody orders because she was denied visitation with her grandchildren.

As a tribute to each of us joining together all over the country in "A Moment in our Hearts, A Moment of Solidarity" we light our candles to unite our voices
and focus on the reasons we are here and the message we are sending.

As we light these five candles in honor of our families and our children, we light one for our grief, one for our courage, one for our memories, one for our love. Our ceremony includes the addition of a fifth candle, a candle for justice.

This first candle represents our grief. The pain of not
having our children in our lives is intense. It reminds us constantly of
the depth of our love for you.

This second candle represents our courage to confront
our sorrow, to comfort each other, and know that our children are in our
hearts always.

This third candle we light in your memory, for all the
times we think about our children, the times we have had or would like
to have had with you, knowing you will be with us in our memories always.

This fourth candle represents the light of love. As we
start each day, day by day, we cherish the special place in our hearts
that will always be reserved for our children.

This fifth candle represents justice. We are parents,
brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and stepfamilies.
We raise our voices to send the message from our hearts of what we feel
in our souls: that we cherish our families more than anything. Our families
are our inspiration. Our heritage is the right of all families to exist
and function as a family and the right to protection from the hardship
of unaffordable financial support orders and penalties which are unjustly
imposed. Our vision advocates that the right to share the responsibility
for meeting all our children's needs equally and within our means, and
the right of of all family members to maintain their family bonds, must
be recognized and protected as civil and human rights. We ask tonight that
this inspiration, heritage and vision of justice be embraced by society,
our lawmakers and our legal system to create a true justice system, a system
that will provide guidance, protection and refuge to all family members
in crisis, a system that will apply a standard of compassion, problem-solving
and reasonableness, and a system that will maintain a constant vigilance
to seek the truth and administer orders that will protect the civil rights
and rebuild the lives of all family members.